Body armor is old and known in the art. Since the dawn of time, warriors and soldiers have clad themselves with protective clothing and apparatuses in an attempt to shield their bodies from injury. Initially, this armor was made of naturally occurring materials such as animal skins, leathers, bamboo, wood and combinations thereof. While this early armor was certainly better than no armor at all, it had its disadvantages. Namely, this armor was difficult to work with, it was heavy and bulky and it did not provide much protection to higher levels of impact.
A substantial improvement to body armor occurred with the discovery of metals and the development of manufacturing methods to manipulate metal. Body armor made of metal afforded substantial improvements to impact resistance over the prior armor. While metallic body armor has extremely high impact resistance, it comes at the cost of being extremely heavy.
In the modern era, tightly woven composite fabrics were developed and implemented for use as body armor. The most well-known is Kevlar® which is a registered trademark for a para-aramid synthetic fiber developed by DuPont in 1965. Kevlar® is flexible and has a high tensile strength-to-weight ratio which is 5 times stronger than steel on an equal weight basis. While Kevlar® is strong, lightweight and flexible Kevlar® has its deficiencies. Namely, body armor made of Kevlar® is ineffective at stopping multiple impacts as the material becomes compromised after the first impact. In addition, while Kevlar® may be effective at stopping smaller handgun rounds, Kevlar provides little protection against higher-velocity and higher-impact projectiles such as rifle rounds. A generic name for Kevlar®-type materials is aramid, which is used herein.
Therefore, despite the advances in body armor, problems still remain.
Thus it is a primary object of the invention to provide body armor that improves upon the state of the art.
Another object of the invention is to provide body armor that is lightweight.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide body armor that is low cost to manufacture.
Another object of the invention is to provide body armor that can sustain multiple ballistic impacts.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide body armor that can sustain high ballistic impacts.
Another object of the invention is to provide body armor that breaks a projectile apart when the projectile hits the body armor.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide body armor stops a projectile when the projectile hits the body armor.
Another object of the invention is to provide body armor that is comfortable to wear.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide body armor that has multiple layers that perform different functions when struck by a projectile.
Another object of the invention is to provide body armor that is durable.
These and other objects, features, or advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the specification, claims and drawings.